It's sad that there is almost a pride in stupidity and ignorance these days; a societal subtext that being involved and well-informed is somehow... elitist. Or, at the very least, it makes you a hysterical paranoid nutball and a charter member of the tinfoil hat brigade.

A friend of mine refers to it as a world that lacks "civic stamina."

True, lasting change is always hard; it requires work and determination.

I'm by no means an expert, but the problem with potests and placard waving is that the status quo sees it as very "visible" and simply builds higher walls around its ways. Seems that perhaps rather than protesting the system, we need to use the tools of the system to change the system. And to simply BE the change.

As an anarchist friend of mine once observed, if you want to "get at" Big Oil, it's far more effective to simply walk to work instead of taking a car than to stand somewhere with an angry sandwich board. Build alternatives that render the old standards irrelevant.

Easier said than done, I know.